Fretless Question - Lining an unlined neck!?

[bassatnight]

Chaps,

I have a lovely fretless Westone Thunder 3 fretless that I am very happy with but I am struggling without the fret markers (pitiful I know) is there a decent way of lining the neck or does anyone know a decent luthier who can carry out this change for me?

Ta,

Steve.

[geoffbyrne]

As another Thunder III Fretless owner, I implore you to stick with it, use the side markers, play open strings for reference where you can, and don't mess up a beautiful neck.



Geoff

[richrips]

i did this to a yamaha. i'd recommend sawing slots VERY carefully then putting in hard maple markers with as little (decent) epoxy as possible. I used wood filler instead and the markers slowly 'sank' as the filler gradually contracted as it continued to dry out, but luckily i soon snapped the truss rod so i didn't have to live with my mistake for long!

To start some heated controversy, i'm going to step out and say:

Ahem...

I think the idea of not having fret markers on a fretless is just to show off and can't see a logical reason not to have them. The argument that a neck looks better without them is on a par with saying you'd happily drive a car with no speedometer because the dashboard looks more refined, plus people will be impressed at how well you can accurately judge your cars speed without it! And if you really don't need them, why do unlined fretless's usually have sidemarkers?

Why do i feel i've just put myself against a wall facing a firing squad of irreconcilably angered fret-marker-less fretless bass players? ....and i guess the upright brigade will be after my blood as well..... well it was nice knowing everyone!

Hope the first bit is of some use!

Cheers,

Rich

(in a deliberately inflammatory mood after watching this. Why can't UK politics be this honest and exciting???)

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfCRyLlyqJI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfCRyLlyqJI[/url]

[Buzz]

[quote name='richrips' post='829128' date='May 5 2010, 11:11 PM']Why do i feel i've just put myself against a wall facing a firing squad of irreconcilably angered fret-marker-less fretless bass players? ....and i guess the upright brigade will be after my blood as well..... well it was nice knowing everyone![/quote]

And the violinists, chellists, viola-ists......

[endorka]

[quote name='richrips' post='829128' date='May 5 2010, 11:11 PM']....and i guess the upright brigade will be after my blood as well.....[/quote]

Only up to a point. While my experience would certainly indicate that the best way to become fluent and in tune on the double bass is to learn positions of notes by using the ear and the "feel" of the location your hand is in, I don't think it is so clear cut on the fretless bass guitar.

While some of this involves proprioceptory sense, there are aspects of the double bass that assist this development; it is quite easy to find the location of the Ab, A and Bb on the G string by reference to the nut, and D, D#, E, F, F# and G on the G string can easily be found by reference to the position of the thumb in the neck heel. Sometimes even Db can be located this way, and I can also get the high Ab and A from another position locater.

This leaves only a "no man's land" of B and C on the G string, which you can (usually) get by reference to the more secure positions.

However, there are no such physical guides on the fretless bass, other than the nut, so I think the argument for fret markers or side position dots is stronger than that on the DB/Cello/Violin/Viola.

I'd be interested to hear how others develop their proprioceptory sense/muscle memory on the fretless bass in the absence of such guides.

Jennifer

[synaesthesia]

[quote name='endorka' post='829387' date='May 6 2010, 10:27 AM']I'd be interested to hear how others develop their proprioceptory sense/muscle memory on the fretless bass in the absence of such guides.[/quote]

The notion of muscle memory applying to electric fretless bass guitar is open question; it applies only if you play the same shaped instrument or the same few instruments. This applies to fretted ones as well. I regularly played without dominant choice, a Rick, an Alembic, an Ibanez, a Stingray, Jazz and a P bass when I was recording heavily in the 90s. You can close your eyes and play but eventually you get used to the instruments and you know if that instrument has 24 frets or not purely by how it sits on your lap. (I was more of a studio cat....). With fretless, I have a 30" scale hofner and several 34" scale basses of different shapes and neck profiles, you have to get to know the instrument to work with it. I don't play the 30" scale much but it takes a while and you fall back to better accuracy with intonation.

If you don't know it, i.e. you don't play it enough, you'd lose the ability to intonate as easily on a fretless.The acoustic bass viol family has less radical shape differences and neck profiles, than the myriad of electric bass choices available. It is easier to intonate between two different bass viols of the same scale with minor body differences, than it is to intonate freely between a Pedulla buzz and a fretless J.

If you pry the F bass out of Alain Caron's hands and give him a 33 1/4" scale fretless Rick, even he would take a while to adjust to find his intonation.

Edited May 8, 2010 by synaesthesia

[janmaat]

Lines, as frets, are usually set in logarithmic order - i.e. the distance between them increases by 12th root of two. That's a very crude way to achieve temperation of an instrument - as opposed to other systems such as Kirnberger II etc. in use for a piano, and very different from tuning systems such as pythagorean (like, harps) etc. etc. - one effect of that is, for example, that the 3rd on any string is significantly lower than the natural third (natural scales are ie. set in the fret order of sitars etc). Don't want to go to deep into it, but if you do some research into tuning / scale theory, you will find out very quickly that logarithmic tuning (ie fretting an instrument) is very limited and actually only desirable if you play a lot of chords, which is why it is absent in orchestral classical music. Now on a bass, where you mainly play only one note, why should you then limit yourself to logarithmic scale? You basically limit yourself to the chord structures etc. common in (all sorts of) pop music. - Hence, for other stuff, fretless. It's not just to have the mwahh sound. It's actually a relief from the prison bars of logarithmic scale.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

[quote name='richrips' post='829128' date='May 5 2010, 11:11 PM']I think the idea of not having fret markers on a fretless is just to show off[/quote]
Why else does anyone ever go on stage?

[7string]

Jon Shuker de-fretted and ramped my Conklin for me. Great job and the price was pretty good as well. Thoroughly recommended.

I sent the bass to Jon and picked it up a couple of weeks later.




I played violin for 10 years and I feel that gives me a definite advantage when it comes to double bass or fretless bass. If I could have afforded it I would have had the whole fingerboard swapped for a clean one without lines. Jon did a smashing job of making them as unnoticeable as possible

[6stringbassist]

You'll probably find that you can''t actually see the lines on the neck, unless you stand with your neck at a funny angle while playing .

Side markers are far better.

[7string]

That's if they're in the right place.

Fretted basses always have the side dots in-between the frets and, ideally for fretless, you need the side dots directly over where the fret should be.